Ladies and gentlemen,

I am writing to you on behalf of my own and on behalf of all Mazurenko Armwrestling Promotion team. Like all of you I am devastated by the incident that happened during the World Armwrestling Championship, which has just finished in Lithuania. I am deeply shocked by the attitude of organizers from the Lithuanian side to athletes, members of delegations, fans and companies that worked at the championship.

I collaborate with the World and the European Armwrestling Federations for the last 14 years. During this time, I organized the World and European Championships and several international tournaments. Every year I organize a Professional Armwrestling World Cup which, according to the athletes opinion, is by far the best armwrestling tournament from an organizational point of view.

Therefore, that blow on me and my company was especially painful.

As always, we approach to preparation of the championship with full responsibility and maximum involvement of all our forces and funds. We always strive to make every sporting event unique for it has remained in the memory of athletes and fans.

Since we have received signals of the unreadiness of the Lithuanian organizer of the championship, we were in constant contact with the president of the World Armwrestling Federation - Assen Hadjitodorov. He assured us that the organizer will perform all the work and provide the necessary resources by the start of the championship. Given our long-standing cooperation with the WAF, we believed those assurances.

Unfortunately, at the beginning of the championship it turned out that the Lithuanian organizer did not pay contractors. Some of them have threatened to stop the work for the championship if the Lithuanian organizer will not pay all the debts.

Since the World Armwrestling Championship was in jeopardy, Lithuanian organizer paid out a part of the debt, but at the expense of the budget of my company. Organizer repeatedly assured us that the debt will be payed during the championship.

I have repeatedly informed the President of the World Federation of the situation and requested a meeting with the participation of the Directorate, Lithuanian organizer and our company.

At the beginning, my repeated requests for help were ignored, and then the Lithuanian organizer and president of WAF openly avoided discussion of the situation.

Unfortunately, all the borders of decency were violated when WAF President publicly blamed Igor Mazurenko and Marcin Mielniczuk of the delay in the Championship instead of Lithuanian organizer.

I know how much they were offended by those charges and the manner they were made in.

I suspect that the president made his emotional statement without thinking. We all felt that the World Armwrestling Championship, an event of paramount importance for each athlete, is about to be torn down. Probably it can explain the president’s negative emotions explosion. But, unfortunately, I can not understand why, at the end no one apologized to Igor and Martin for those insulting words spoken from the stage of the Championship. I sincerely hope that this will happen as soon as possible.

I regret the fact that the Lithuanian organizer brought to this situation and the attacks on me personally and my company messed up a big holiday of armwrestling - World Armwrestling Championship.

I had the opportunity to work with most of you. You know me and my co-workers. We are dedicated to this sport for many years. Together we celebrated the victories and shared the bitterness of defeat. And, despite the fact that sometimes our opinions do not match, we always respected each other.

But it appeared in Lithuania that someone was lacking respect…

Please send this letter to the members of your Federation. If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me directly. Thanks to all of you for the very kind words of support during this difficult time for me.

They really mean a lot to me!

Sincerely yours,

Anna Mazurenko and all Mazurenko Armwrestling Promotion team.